


The Cottage At Sussex Downs

by Random_Nexus



Series: "The Furred And The Fae" - Sherlock Holmes canon-based AU [7]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Fae & Fairies, Homosexuality, Hurt/Comfort, Inter-Species Relationships, M/M, Magic, Major Character Death (but not SH or JW), Mourning, Prompt Fic, Retirement, The Furred And The Fae, Watson's Woes, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2018, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-23 00:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15594084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Nexus/pseuds/Random_Nexus
Summary: Holmes and Watson are having a look at a cottage in the Sussex downs and discussing retirement, of a sort.Written For The Prompt:  JWP #31: "Retirement. Whether it’s Holmes and Watson retired together and enjoying the quiet life, Dawson reflecting on his adventures while living in the Mouse Soldiers Home, or some other version, set your work in the retirement era today." -Watson's WoesJuly Writing Prompts.





	The Cottage At Sussex Downs

**Author's Note:**

> The Muse and I are still on our 'The Furred And The Fae' trend with these prompts. I touched on this subject obliquely in a previous TFatF fic, so I was kind of already primed to do this fic. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but I hope you enjoy, dear readers.

Watson followed Holmes in silence as he opened the French doors in the sitting room and walked through onto the tiled patio, looking past the garden beyond it and out at the not too distant sea. The sound of the waves carried up to them clearly, but not horribly loudly, and if Watson could smell the brine on the air, he knew Holmes would have. Overhead, a rather overgrown mix of several flowering vines wove a green awning extending out beyond the edge of the cottage roof; Watson could barely make out the trellis supporting the luxurious plant growth, and though the flowers were all still in little buds, he could smell the sweeter edge to the green scent because of them.

Finally, when Holmes still hadn’t spoken, Watson asked quietly, “Well? What do you think?”

Holmes nodded slowly, finally looking away from the grey-blue-green of the horizon, and blinked a few times, as if his eyes were reluctant to focus on something so comparatively close. “You haven’t already bought it, have you?”

Feeling an inward sense of disappointment, Watson kept it to himself as he shook his head. “No, but I’ve been assured the owners would be willing and reasonable to sell immediately if we’re keen. We’d also have… well, a little help with privacy and security.”

Glancing about him, clearly not misunderstanding for a moment, Holmes’ quick gaze took in the plants not only well-established on the trellis, but in the flower boxes lining the low stone wall around the patio and the flower beds leading around the cottage to either side, as well as a deep green lawn leading to more flowers and shrubs lining the surrounding fence, even brightening a small, weather-beaten gazebo at the bottom of the garden. The late summer sunlight glinted in the spray of white hairs starting at Holmes’ temples and fading into his still predominantly black hair. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes and the lines on his face showed age, humour, and character, but anyone who’d known him in his youth would recognise him now. He appeared older, as did Watson, though not blatantly weak or infirm.

“Yes, they’ve been keeping the plants happy, but they’re not… present… at the moment,” Watson murmured, smiling a little under his silver-peppered auburn moustache. He had his own lines and wrinkles, as well as more silver at his temples and in a few random streaks everywhere in between. Both Watson’s and Holmes’ older appearances were the results of magical glamours, of course, because neither of them, for differing reasons, looked as old as they would have, had they been strictly human. Watson reassured him easily, “In the normal course of things, they would not at all be intrusive—most wouldn’t even notice them. The majority of the local Fae are nocturnal, anyway.”

Nodding again, Holmes slowly went back inside, looking at the well-tended wood and brick of the fireplace, the gentle gleam of the hardwood floors. The ceilings and doorways weren’t as high as those at Baker Street, but not so low as to make Holmes and his few inches above six feet have to fear knocking his head on anything. The kitchen and a modest dining room—quite a small room, but with a large, three-paned window looking out onto the far side of the garden—two bedrooms upstairs and a third, smaller one downstairs, and a room clearly meant for a study at the front corner of the cottage, with a slightly smaller triple-paned window looking out onto the walk and the small road running past the cottage to a village several miles away.

Voice echoing in the empty sitting room, Holmes said, “Sussex is a long way from London.”

“But it’s more private and will last us till we have to leave England completely,” Watson argued. “We’d have few, if any, unexpected guests on the average, and so could relax enough to just be ourselves more often.”

Holmes made a considering sound, wrinkling his nose and making a crooked sort of moue with his lips. He went up the stairs and stood in the doorway of the rear-most bedroom, the one with yet another big window—again with a larger central frame and two narrower on either side—looking out toward the sea. From where he stood Watson could see the half-open door to a surprisingly modern bathroom between the two rooms, having appreciated the fact that it had another door leading to the other upstairs bedroom. For propriety’s sake, should they have guests at some point, there could be no doubt Holmes and Watson slept in separate bedrooms, but either could easily move from one bedroom to the other via those connecting bathroom doors if they wished.

“You’re being rather cryptic,” Watson said, not quite complaining. “If you don’t fancy it, you needn’t try to be diplomatic, just speak your mind.”

Taking a few steps to the centre of the room, and then facing the seaward window, Holmes gave a single, deeper nod. “What do you think of putting the bed right here?”

Giving a relieved, half-laughing, half-exasperated sound, Watson went to Holmes and threw his arms around the frustrating man’s neck, kissing him enthusiastically. “You insufferable te—” he started after breaking the kiss, but wasn’t allowed to finish his accusation.

Wrapping his own arms tightly around Watson, Holmes lifted him to his toes as he recaptured Watson’s mouth and gave just as good, if not better, than he’d got.

After a few good, long minutes of being lost in each other, they slowly eased apart and Watson looked up at Holmes with a hopeful smile. “So, you think you could live here happily enough?”

“If not London, then…” Holmes sighed, looking around the room again, his gaze yet again catching on the view of the sea, “there are plenty worse places. No, no, my dear,” he shifted to a placating tone, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips in response to Watson’s little huff of frustration. “No, I do like it very much. Something about it… pulls me… I don’t know how to properly describe it. It’s unsettling.”

“Perhaps it’s the sea?” Watson supposed, seeking and taking Holmes’ hand, leading him out of the room and downstairs. “You’ve always enjoyed the seaside, though not the sun.”

“You as well,” Holmes returned smartly, though not argumentatively. He let Watson lead him through the cottage and outside again, releasing his hand to stroll arm-in-arm through the garden on an overgrown stone pathway. “I could keep bees here,” murmured Holmes as they approached the small, eight-sided gazebo.

Watson smiled. That had been another thing he’d been planning to use to win Holmes over. Of course the man had come to it, himself. “You’d have help with it, should you desire it,” he put forth quietly. At Holmes’ brows-up gaze, his smile grew and he patted the arm tucked in his own. “No reflection on your beekeeping skills, love, only that the sort of Fae who happily dwell in gardens are also generally fond of bees. They would guard your little darlings and keep them company, as well as lead them to the best sources of pollen and nectar and whatnot.”

“Well, I could hardly take exception to any of _that_ ,” replied Holmes, sounding mollified, even pleased.

“For the most part,” Watson said, taking a deep breath as they sat side-by-side on one of the built-in benches in the gazebo, “I wanted a place you could ‘retire’ to without feeling like you were in hiding or… in exile.” He turned his face into the dapples of golden afternoon light filtering through the broadly spread branches of the oak tree, shadowing at least a third of the garden and making of itself a solid boundary there in the corner of the property. “We can go about without our glamours more often than not here, as I said before, and not worry about being caught out. I think Mrs. Hudson’s niece married a fine young man, and they’ve done well by us since she’s been gone… but…” Watson shook his head.

“She knew,” Holmes put forth into his lover’s uncomfortable silence. His jaw was clenched and his face drawn in the way that told Watson he was feeling the loss of good old Mrs. Hudson afresh. She’d been something like a cross between favourite aunt and second mother to Holmes, and a dear woman to Watson when he moved in.

“Yes,” agreed Watson with a nod. “When she… just before she went to sleep that last night. She told me to take care of you.” He glanced over to find Holmes watching him with slightly raised eyebrows and eyes full of mourning, but the man said nothing, so Watson continued, “I promised that I would, of course, but she caught my hand and looked me right in the eyes, saying, ‘The law’s sometimes unfair, for all that we’re obligated to mind it, but there’s nothing wrong with love, Dr. Watson, and never has been. You love him and stand by him; he adores you, as you must know. I don’t know quite what’s different about you, but I know you’re good for him. That’s enough for me. Just you take care of him.’ And, well… I didn’t admit to anything, but I didn’t argue, either.”

Holmes gave a heavy sigh and slowly slumped into Watson, letting his head fall onto Watson’s shoulder, despite the disparity in their heights. “Of course. She always saw more than she let on.” His voice was thick with sorrow and yet underscored with a sort of happiness, too. Watson slipped his arm around Holmes’ shoulders, pulling him even closer in. He’d hear anyone approaching, considering their nearest neighbor was five miles away, and damn this backwards human world if he couldn’t comfort his beloved for a few moments in peace.

They sat in bittersweet silence for a while, a cool breeze coming up along the downs from the direction of the sea, carrying a few gull cries along with a variety of distinctive salt-laden scents. “Shall we head back in a while?” Watson asked softly. They’d left their hired coachman in the village up the road, at the only inn, having instructed him that they would send word if he was to stay the night and come for them in the morning, otherwise they’d come to him by or before dusk.

Nodding with another sigh, this one not so heavy, Holmes rotated his head enough to put a quick kiss on Watson’s chin. “We’ll have to tell Mycroft.”

“Of course,” Watson agreed.

“I do mean ‘we’, John,” Holmes pressed.

Watson smiled a little and squeezed his lover slightly. “I wouldn’t dream of making you go alone,” he said fondly. “Mycroft will probably understand, given that he had to practically be _forced_ to retire, but we know he’s been enjoying the extra time to scheme and meddle on his own agenda. Lora will understand, but worry… the children, however…”

“They’re hardly children any longer, Watson. They’re both at university. But still, we shall never hear the end of it,” Holmes said with a smirking nod. “They shall want to visit straight away.”

“Why not?” Watson chuckled. “Allora’s as mad about bees as you are and Myron’s so fond of the water, he might yet grow gills one day.”

Holmes chuckled, too, and when they both sighed almost in chorus, it was immediately followed by a bit of quiet laughter. “Yes. Yes, let’s do it. We’ll retire here and spend a little while pretending to grow old before… well, whatever comes next.”

Feeling a bright burst of happiness at a new ‘adventure’, Watson waved one hand casually. “We’ll worry about that ‘whatever’ later. Come along, my dear, it’s a bit of a stroll to the village for two old gentlemen such as we.”

Holmes snorted a little as he let Watson pull him to his feet. “I’ll show you ‘old’, grandpa!” He made a grab for Watson’s few ticklish spots, with Watson barely managing to avoid those clever fingers, leading to the two of them cavorting their way back to the cottage in a manner more resembling boisterous schoolchildren than men supposedly in their late fifties.

They did make it back to the village before dusk— _just_ before dusk—but only the bare walls of their soon to be new home were witness to what, exactly, delayed them.


End file.
